The Beau Street Hoard: excavation progress

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the Beau Street Hoard is not just one huge jumbled mass of coins, but actually at least six separate bags. My excavation plan is to remove these coins bag by bag, to preserve the groupings (which are potentially very significant), and give us a clearer view of the size and shape of each bag.

I had been concerned that the coins might have concreted together to such an extent that identifying separate bags would be very difficult during the excavation, but (fingers crossed!) thus far the removal of individual bags has progressed remarkably smoothly. I have managed to retrieve two whole bags of coins. I have numbered these bags five and six, and they are the two smallest bags at the northern end of the block in the x-ray (five being the smallest).